more than he could say. At least they could laugh about this later. Or something.
Grandfather was watching him closely as he spooned up a bite of stew, and Jonas braced for the next round of insanity. Sure enough, Grandfather cleared his throat.
“Will you and your bride be starting a family soon?”
Not this again and from his grandfather, too? Obviously Jonas’s mother had a vested interest in the answer strictly because she wanted babies to spoil, but Grandfather wasn’t asking for anything close to that reason. It was all part of the test.
“Not soon,” he hedged because family was important to the Kims. It was a source of frustration for both his parents and his grandparents that they’d only had one child apiece, and Jonas imagined they’d all be thrilled if he said Viv wanted a dozen. “Viv owns a bakery and it’s doing very well. She’d like to focus on her career for a while.”
Yes. That was the reason they weren’t having kids right away. Why had he been racking his brain over that? Except now he was thinking about the conversation where he had to tell everyone that while he cared about Viv, they were better as friends, so the marriage was over. While it soothed his sense of honor that it was the truth, he’d never considered that the annulment would upset his family.
“We’re having her cupcakes for dessert,” his mother threw in with a beaming smile. “They look scrumptious.”
Perfect segue and took some heat off a subject that Jonas suddenly did not want to contemplate. “The lemon are my favorite. One bite and that was when I decided I couldn’t let Viv get away.”
The adoring glance she shot him thumped him in the gut. The little secret smile playing about her lips worked in tandem, spreading tendrils of heat through him in ways that should be uncomfortable at a table full of Kims who were all watching him closely. But the sensation was too enjoyable to squelch.
“Honestly, that was when I knew he was special,” Viv admitted, and Jonas nearly did a double take at the wistful note in her voice. “He appreciates my cupcakes in a way regular customers don’t. A lot goes into the recipes and I don’t just mean my time. It’s a labor of love, born out of a desire to make people happy, and I can see on his face that I’ve done that. Most customers just devour the thing without stopping to breathe, but Jonas always takes one bite and immediately stops to savor it. Then he tells me how great it is before taking another bite.”
Well, yeah, because he could taste the sunshine in it, as if she’d somehow condensed a few rays and woven them through the ingredients. How could he not take his time to fully appreciate the unique experience of a Viviana Dawson cupcake?
Jonas blinked, dragging his lids down over his suddenly dry eyes. He didn’t do that every time, not the way she was describing it, as if a cupcake held all that meaning.
He glanced at his mom, who looked a little misty.
“That sounds like a magical courtship,” she said.
“Oh, it was,” Viv agreed enthusiastically. “It was like one of those movies where the hero pretends he only wants the cupcakes when he comes into the shop, but it’s really to see the baker. But I always knew from the first that the way to his heart was through my frosting.”
His mother laughed and Jonas checked his eye roll because the whole point was to sell this nonsense. Everyone was eating it up, no pun intended, so why mess with the ridiculous story Viv was spinning?
Except the whole thing made him uncomfortable.
Surely his grandfather wouldn’t appreciate hearing his successor described with such romanticism. If anything, Viv could help Jonas’s case by telling everyone how hard he worked and how difficult it was to pry him away from his cell phone when they went to lunch.
He sighed. She couldn’t say that. It would be a big, fat lie. When he did anything with Viv, he always switched his phone to do not disturb. He loved listening to stories about her sisters, or a new recipe she was working through. But it didn’t mean he was gaga over her like a besotted fool.
Yet...that’s what he needed his grandfather to buy, as difficult as it was to envision. Grandfather hadn’t accepted Jonas’s marriage to Viv because she’d helped him increase profits or created an advantageous business alliance. Viv was an impulse of the heart.
How had he gotten caught in the middle of trying to prove to his grandfather that Jonas was a committed, solid CEO candidate, while also attempting to convince him that he and Viv had fallen in love? And Jonas had no illusions about the necessity of maintaining the current vibe, not after his grandfather smiled over Viv’s enthusiastic retelling of what would probably forever be called the Cupcake Courtship. It was madness.
“Will you bring your wife to Seoul to visit the Kim ancestral home?” Grandfather asked in the lull. “It’s yours now. Perhaps you’ll want to redecorate?”
Jonas nearly groaned. He hadn’t had four seconds to mention the gift to Viv. Her eyebrows lifted in silent question and he blessed her discretion.
“We’re actually looking for a house together in Raleigh,” Jonas improvised much more smoothly than he would have guessed he could. Viv’s eyebrows did another reach-for-the-sky move as he rushed on. “So probably we won’t make it to Korea anytime soon. But we do both appreciate the gift.”
Nothing like a good reminder that Jonas’s home was in America. The future of the company lay here, not in Seoul. The more he could root himself in North Carolina, the better. Of course the answer was to buy a property here. With Viv. A new ancestral home in North Carolina. Then his statement to his grandfather wouldn’t be a lie.
“Yes, thank you so much, Mr. Kim,” Viv said sweetly. “We’ll discuss our work schedules and find a mutual time we can travel. I would be honored to see your ancestral home. Mrs. Kim, perhaps you’d advise me on whether the decor needs refurbishing?”
Jonas’s mom smiled so widely that it was a wonder she didn’t crack her face. “That’s a lovely idea. I would be thrilled to go to lunch and discuss the house, as I’ve always loved the locale.”
Speechless, Jonas watched the exchange with a very real sense of his life sliding out of control and no way to put on the brakes. In the last two minutes, he’d managed to rope himself into shopping for a house in Raleigh, then traveling to Korea so Viv could visit Seoul with the express intent of redecorating a house neither of them wanted...with his mom. What next?
“While you’re in Korea,” Grandfather said, and his tone was so leading that everyone’s head turned toward him, “we should discuss taking next steps toward increasing your responsibilities at Kim Electronics. The board will look very favorably on how you’ve matured, Jonas. Your accomplishments with the American market are impressive. I would be happy to recommend you as the next CEO when I retire.”
The crazy train screeched to a halt in the dead center of Are You Kidding Me Station. Say something. Tell him you’re honored.
But Jonas’s throat froze as his brain tried to sort through his grandfather’s loaded statements.
Everything he’d worked for had just been handed to him on a silver platter—that Viv was holding in her delicate fingers. The implications were staggering. Grandfather liked that Jonas was married. It was a huge wrinkle he had never seen coming.
Now he couldn’t annul the marriage or he’d
